49 pages • 1 hour read
L. J. ShenBeautiful Graves
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 14-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary
On Christmas Day, Joe and Ever do their best to avoid each other. When Ever returns to her apartment, she finds it empty of Nora and Colt. She receives a package from her father, and it is filled with memories and keepsakes of her mom. Inspired by the bittersweet gift, Ever buys art supplies and returns home to draw for the first time in six years. Her first picture is a gravestone for her mom.
When Nora returns the next day, Ever tells her that Dom’s brother, “Seph,” is the Joe from her past. Nora insists that Ever stay with Dom because the two seem perfect for each other. Ever doesn’t necessarily believe that they are, but Nora urges Ever to move forward with their relationship. Suddenly, Ever notices an engagement ring on Nora’s finger, and after a shrieking celebration, Nova explains that Colt proposed to her over the Christmas holiday.
Part 1, Chapter 15 Summary
Two days later, Ever cooks Dom a meal at his place. He has been working double shifts ever since Christmas, so they’ve been unable to see each other. While getting ready for bed, Ever loses an earring, and when she searches the floor, she finds a gold necklace underneath Dom’s bed, marked with the letter “S.” When she confronts him, he admits that the necklace belonged to someone he was seeing before he and Ever got together; he says that it was likely left by a girl named Sierra, with whom he had one date via Tinder. Ever is hesitant but decides to believe him.
Dom invites Ever to move in with him, but she declines for now. Dom also mentions that Joe invited them to grab lunch with him this week. Because Ever is secretly still attracted to Joe, she doesn’t believe that this plan is a good idea, so she claims that she is too busy throughout January.
One week later, Joe is still occupying Ever’s thoughts. During a shift when she is giving a night tour of Salem, Ever is surprised to see that Joe is there. When she asks him why he is attending, he admits that she would have avoided him if he had asked her ahead of time. After the tour ends, Joe admits that he wrote four pages after seeing her at Christmas. Ever admits that she also drew a new picture after Christmas. They believe that they are each other’s muses and that their presence in each other’s lives inspires their art.
Joe suggests that they start spending time together in order to continue motivating themselves to write and draw. Ever refuses because she believes that she will end up emotionally or physically cheating on Dom. Though Joe insists that Dom won’t mind them spending time together, she does not change her stance.
Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary
Two weeks later, Dom takes Ever to Puerto Rico for a long weekend. Joe drives them to the airport. This creates an awkward situation for Ever, although she believes that Dom doesn’t notice. During the trip, Ever becomes closer to Dom and more certain of their relationship. After they return home, Dom invites her to his mom’s birthday dinner the following evening. When she returns to her apartment alone, Ever discovers a collection of A4 papers on her floor near the front door. Contained in them is a portion of Joe’s novel and a note that says “please” with his phone number scrawled below. Ever texts Joe and agrees to spend time with him for the purpose of mutual inspiration.
Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary
As Dom drives himself and Ever to Dover for his mom’s birthday, Dom is restless. After working several double shifts and keeping all his other extracurricular commitments, he has become deeply exhausted. He admits that he has not been sleeping for the past two days. Suddenly, he swerves dangerously on the road. When they make it to his parents’ house, Ever decides that she will drive them back home. At the gathering, Ever notices that Dom and Joe engage in a little competition over the question of who has given their mother the best gift. Joe wins because he sourced the original dress that she wore on her first date with their father. The dress was lost in the move from their old house, and he tracked it down.
After gifts are exchanged, Dom steals the spotlight by proposing to Ever. Backed into a corner and unable to say no without upsetting his parents, Ever accepts the proposal. Joe is unhappy with this development. Later, when the rest of the family is busy, Ever visits Joe’s room to check in. He expresses disapproval over the quick engagement and insists that she should have said no. When the conversation grows angry, Joe deescalates the verbal fight with a heated kiss. After kissing him back, Ever breaks away, feeling guilty. Her guilt makes him even angrier, and Joe claims that she is the worst thing that has ever happened to him.
Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary
Ever drives herself and Dom back to Salem. At her apartment, she lies in order to avoid having sex with Dom that evening, claiming that she needs to buy tampons. Dom offers to walk to the Walgreens across the street and purchase some for her while she packs her bag to head to his place. While she is packing, she receives a call from Joe, who demands that she come to the hospital because Dom collapsed in the middle of the street and was hit by a truck.
Ever rushes to the hospital, where she is greeted by a blonde woman in scrubs. When Ever mentions that she is here for her fiancé, Dominic Graves, the woman is shocked. She introduces herself as Sarah. Ever remembers Dom mentioning that Sarah was the colleague who suggested that he search Craigslist for missing cat ads when Loki first appeared on his balcony months ago. Now, Sarah reveals that she is Dom’s girlfriend of three years. Ever is shocked to realize that Dom has been cheating on them both.
Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary
Ever makes the connection between the “S” necklace and Sarah’s name. She also notes that on all the days that he was supposedly working double shifts, he was really making time to see Sarah. When Joe arrives at the hospital and acts close with Sarah, Ever realizes that he must have known that Dom was cheating. Though she is angry with him for not telling her, she also understands the tough position that Joe was in. Shortly after Joe and Dom’s parents arrive, they all learn that Dom has died in the operating room due to extensive brain injuries.
Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary
Joe, his parents, Sara, and Ever mourn in near silence for the next few hours. Sarah comforts them by explaining that due to the nature of his injuries, he wasn’t in pain when he died. This brings them a modicum of peace.
Ever steps away to call her dad. When he answers, he is curt as usual, but when Ever breaks down crying, he becomes concerned. Ever tells him about Dom, her engagement, and Dom’s tragic death. Her father insists on taking the next flight out to comfort her.
A week later, Ever’s dad and brother accompany her to Dom’s funeral. Joe cannot bear to stay for the entire ceremony. Joe invites her to leave with him, but Ever cannot leave her dad and brother behind, so she declines.
Part 1, Chapters 14-20 Analysis
In this section of the novel, Shen lays the groundwork for an eventual continuation of Joe and Ever’s relationship. Notably, the reemergence of Joe in Ever’s life rekindles her passion for art, just as Joe finds himself inspired to write again. As they draw closer despite themselves, it is clear that their connection is far more powerful than Ever’s relationship with Dom. However, Ever’s memories of Joe also remind her of her mother, as she met him during a time when her mom was still alive. Joe’s connection to her old self reminds her of who she is now, and “more importantly—who [she] can become” (145). As a result, Ever is inspired to buy a sketch pad and pencils and begins to sketch a gravestone design for her mom. Yet, in the midst of these positive developments, Joe continues to insist on seeing Ever despite the boundaries that she has attempted to set, and this dynamic further heightens the tension in the narrative. This issue is compounded by Ever’s belief that she might unwittingly cheat on Dom if she and Joe attempt to casually spend time with one another.
As Ever grapples with the temptations of infidelity, Shen also foreshadows the eventual discovery of Dom’s own issues in this category, highlighting Dom’s suspicious “double shifts.” Although his busy schedule does not raise any alarm bells at first, given that the medical field is notorious for long shifts and unpredictable hours, the fact that he works extra during the holidays indicates that some other factor is in play. Eventually, it becomes clear that he wasn’t actually working; instead, he was making the time to visit his other girlfriend, Sarah, for Christmas. Ever’s discovery of the gold necklace under Dom’s bed also contributes to the impression that he is being less than honest with her.
However, these worries become secondary when Ever’s struggles with The Complexities of Grief return with a vengeance upon the news of Dom’s death. Most notably, the circumstances of his demise force her to relive her unprocessed trauma about her mother’s death; in both instances, inconsequential actions of her own play a small role in the broader chain of events leading to both disasters. While the moments immediately after Dom’s death are largely focused on the family’s collective grief and Ever’s reconnection with her father, the subsequent chapters reveal the extent to which Ever continues Running From Shame and Guilt. In Chapter 20, she demonstrates the bargaining stage of grief when she says, “I would pay in weeks and months and years from my own life just to be able to kiss and touch him again. To tell him that I love him. To explain that I really didn’t need the tampons” (209). Because this new tragedy contains similarities to her existing grief, Ever’s behavior in these chapters foreshadows the fact that she will continue to evade her emotions by seeking ever more drastic means of escape.
However, these circumstances also serve to bring additional conflicts to light, most notably when Sarah and Ever discover Dom’s infidelity. If he had survived his injuries, they would likely have reacted in anger and hostility, but in this scene, The Complexities of Grief dictate that Dom’s death will change their entire reactive process, as they realize that “even cheating and infidelity is small in the grand scheme of life” (204), and they ruefully conclude that their “anger is so redundant, and duller in comparison to the pain of losing him” (204). While this issue would have taken center stage under normal circumstances, the stark reality of Dom’s death makes the issue of infidelity pale in comparison. Thus, once again, Shen subverts the common plot pattern of the love triangle by engineering a situation that simultaneously eliminates it and renders it far less onerous than it might otherwise have been. However, the heightened intensity of these chapters foreshadows additional emotional turmoil in the characters’ near future as they struggle to choose a new path in the wake of their unexpected loss.
